I’m link stealing from Sebastian today, although he’s stealing from Joe Huffman anyway. The gist of the question posed is that if an armed loony is plugging things, should/would you attempt to engage that person and cease their threat?
A while back, I sort of answered that question in this post, in so far as I feel that my obligation to defend my fellow citizens ends as soon as those actions put the life of my family in jeopardy. I’m a little disappointed that when I switched to Haloscan for my comments all the original comments on the site disappeared, as that post had some excellent discussion.
To reiterate my point made there, I believe that as a citizen who is not a cop or a soldier, my obligation to defend “my fellow man” doesn’t extend past my family. I agree wholeheartedly with Sebastian in that if I could secure my own area and made sure that my responsibilities were covered, only then would I take a shot if I had the opportunity.
It all goes back to the way I was raised, and by that I mean “traditionally”. I am responsible for the safety of my family, which means that I’ll take the action I deem most effective at providing the highest level of safety for that family. My in-depth research indicates that going looking for a gunfight is generally counterproductive to the my safety, and the safety of my family.
